The musings of a feminist pop culture fanatic

Previously on PLL: Spencer completely lost it and ended up in Radley after seeing Toby’s dead body in the woods. Aria baby-sat Ezra’s incredibly clumsy son and he ended up in the emergency room. Hanna convinced Pastor Ted to hire Caleb’s Uncle Daddy to do renovations to the bell tower, but he might not be over his petty theft past. Spencer met E. Lamb and he told her about the troubles with the Radley ID badges. Ezra applied to be a substitute teacher in Rosewood, since apparently no other school districts are hiring anyone, so the vice principal asked Aria if she and Ezra are still dating. Aria was an idiot and lied. Mama Marin ran over Wilden, but he survived. Hanna and Aria pushed Wilden’s car into a lake, because they’re idiots. Mona went to visit Spencer in Radley and tried once more to get her to join the A Team.

Spencer is still hanging out in Radley, but she is apparently allowed visitors now. The girls come to hang out with Spencer in the day room. They assure her they wanted to be there the first day she was in the hospital, but no one would let them in. Spencer’s mom told the girls Spencer would be coming home tomorrow, but Spencer says her mom is delusional and she’s nowhere near ready to come home. The girls quickly realize just how fucked up Spencer is. However, Hanna decides to go ahead with some shock therapy. She tells Spencer the park rangers found a body in the woods. Emily and Aria try to get Hanna to lessen the blow a bit, but Hanna thinks telling Spencer the truth will get her out of Radley sooner. Emily takes over the story and tells Spencer they found a body in the woods, but it was not Toby’s. Spencer remains convinced. Aria changes the subject and asks Spencer if she wants to have a sleepover once she’s home tomorrow. Spencer shuts her down and says she needs more time in Radley. Hanna is having none of that and goes for the tough love approach. Hanna tells Spencer that Radley is crazy, not Spencer. At that point, Spencer decides she’s had enough. She gets up and starts to walk back to her room. As she leaves, she tells the girls that she feels safe at Radley because they can keep people out. When she gets back to her room, she starts digging around in her pillowcase for something. A nurse comes in to tell Spencer the girls are leaving and asks if she wants to say goodbye, but she says she already did so.

Hanna is still staying over at Emily’s house and her stuff has exploded across Emily’s room. Seriously, I thought I had a messy room, but Hanna’s stuff makes it look like a tornado hit the place. Apparently, Hanna is not sleeping well. She keeps looking out the window, expecting to see Wilden lurking outside. Emily thinks Hanna should be focusing on Spencer’s shit, but Hanna argues she has a lot more to worry about. She’s afraid that Wilden’s car will reappear because it learned to float. Emily says that cars don’t float and if they did, the Pilgrims could have just driven to the New World. A couple things I’m worried about here. First, Hanna seems to think Wilden’s car is a sentient being that can learn new things. Secondly, Emily believes that cars were around in the early 1600s. I’m very concerned for their educations. Mama Fields comes in to tell the girls to get ready to leave for school. Hanna leaves and the Fields women have a quick discussion about what happened to Spencer. Mama Fields promises Emily that she will look into everything going on with the dead body investigation. I’m pretty sure Mama Fields is eventually going to get fired if she continues to tell Emily confidential details of open investigations.

At school, Emily talks to Aria about the Toby investigation. Aria tells Emily to ask her mom for a copy of the coroner’s report, but Emily points out it won’t say that it’s not Toby. It will just say John Doe, so they still won’t know anything. They try to come up with ways to convince Spencer that the dead body isn’t Toby. Aria jokes that they need to kidnap Spencer from Radley and take her to see the dead body, but stops when she realizes Emily is actually considering this plan. Emily decides they should break into the morgue (again) and take a picture of the body to show Spencer that it’s not Toby.

Spencer is hanging out in the day room when Eddie comes over with a board game for Spencer to play. Wren walks in to talk to Spencer and he quickly gets rid of Eddie. They basically have a pissing contest near Spencer. So much alpha male bullshit. Wren tells Spencer the board game Eddie pointed out was one of Mona’s obsessions when she was in Radley. Spencer pulls out the board and sees a bunch of weird symbols on it. Spencer decides the board must be a map and starts wandering around, following the directions on it. It’s evidently the path that shows how Mona got in and out of Radley.

Spencer’s mom comes to bring her some of her clothes, so that Spencer can leave. She has a full-on meltdown. She throws the clothes down and screams that she’s not ready to leave. Mama Hastings finally realizes that something is horribly wrong with Spencer and she needs answers. She asks what happened between Spencer and Toby. She goes on to say that the last time she saw someone this distraught over a secret, it was Ali. We get a flashback to a couple weeks before Ali died. Ali is wandering back into the Hastings house late at night. Mama Hastings is downstairs getting a drink and asks why Ali isn’t up in Spencer’s room. Ali’s mouth is all bloody and she says that she doesn’t want to talk about it. Naturally, Mama Hastings doesn’t let it go and continues to push Ali to tell her what happened. Ali continues to plead with Mama Hastings to not tell anyone what she saw. Ali pulls back from hugging Mama Hastings and says she’s just being weird and that she is fine. Spencer asks her mom why she never told anything to the police, but Mama Hastings said she did. She just didn’t pursue it once Jason started coming after the Hastings family. She says she doesn’t think Jason is still after them, but she wants to know if Toby wasn’t the person they thought he was. Spencer says nothing.

The non-Radley girls pull out their old candy striper uniforms and sneak into the morgue. I don’t know why they continue to think candy stripers still dress like that or why they think a candy striper would be anywhere near the morgue late at night. Emily and Hanna go in the morgue, while Aria stands guard. Emily is actually looking through the body bags, but Hanna refuses to get too close to the bodies. Hanna asks what Emily is going to do if the body really belongs to Toby, but Emily won’t even entertain that possibility. They start to open one of the bags as Aria hears something in the hall. She sees Red Coat walking out of the elevator, but Red Coat gets back on the elevator before Aria can see who it is. Just then, Emily and Hanna pull down the zipper on one of the body bags to find a body with a mask on it. They remove the mask and see the face of a total stranger. They get a text from Aria and throw the mask on one of the tables as they leave. That’s not going to make it obvious anyone was in there.

The next day, Spencer asks Eddie who played that board game with Mona. Eddie says he can’t remember, but Spencer says Wren said Mona was obsessed with it. Eddie makes a snarky comment about Wren and Spencer what is the problem between the two of them. She asks if Eddie was the person who was behind the missing badges, but Eddie tries to change the subject. Then she asks if it was Wren. Eddie won’t give her a direct answer, but tells Spencer to trust her instincts. He says his instincts told him something was up with Wren from the moment they met. He hands Spencer her medicine and she seemingly takes it. As soon as Eddie leaves, we see Spencer take the pill and put into a plastic bag hidden in her pillowcase. Uh oh. Trust me, it’s never good when a crazy person stops taking their meds.

Aria volunteers to pick up Malcolm from his karate class. There’s also some bullshit about whether Aria and Ezra should hang out in public, but it’s stupid and ridiculous. When Aria gets to the karate studio, the teacher tells her that Malcolm was already picked up by someone named Aria Montgomery. Instead of flipping the fuck out about the fact that someone seems to have stolen her identity and kidnapped a seven-year-old, Aria continues to be an idiot and tells the teacher it was just a mix-up. She looks over into Malcolm’s cubby and sees a flyer for a really fucking creepy carnival with an A circled. We cut to Malcolm laughing as he watches the most terrifying puppet show I’ve ever seen, while a black hoodie sits next to him.

Aria hauls ass to get to the carnival and is essentially running through the place. Ella apparently enjoys terrifying carnivals because she is there, too. Omigod, what if Ella is on the A team? Plot twist! Anyway, she just wants to talk to Aria about her relationship with Ezra, but Aria is frantically looking for Malcolm without telling anyone she is looking for a missing child. Seriously, once a kid has been kidnapped, that’s when you tell the fucking police, Aria! I get that you don’t want to get in trouble with Ezra and Maggie, but let’s prioritize fears right now. Aria looks over Ella’s shoulder and sees Malcolm hanging out with a black hoodie. She runs over to where she saw him, but he has already disappeared. She continues to run through the carnival. She finally decides to call someone for help, but decides on Emily instead of the police. She asks Emily if she should call the cops, but Emily says that might just make things worse. Aria rightly points out the fact that a psychopath has Ezra’s kid, but Emily says Aria saw that Malcolm wasn’t hurt. Aria is flipping the fuck out. Emily tells Aria to walk over to the police station and she’ll meet her there. Aria looks over and sees a tent she hasn’t checked yet. She walks in to find Malcolm in a completely empty tent, eating ice cream and staring at the creepy puppets. Aria asks Malcolm if he knew that she was supposed to pick him up from karate today. He says Aria’s friend Alison told him she was taking him instead. Oh shit. Aria looks terrified and they leave to go meet Ezra. Later, Ezra and Aria meet up for dinner. Apparently, Malcolm decided Aria is the coolest person on the planet and didn’t tell his mom that a total stranger picked him up from karate. Aria is totally freaked out and tells Ezra that she can’t do it anymore. She tells Ezra that someone is eventually going to get hurt, and Aria would rather it be her. Ezra tells her that things will be different in the morning, but Aria doesn’t seem like she believes him. She walks away and looks completely devastated.

Just as Emily gets to the police station, she gets a text from Aria that she found Malcolm and things are fine. Mama Fields asks what the hell Emily is doing there, but Emily evades the question. Apparently, things are happening because Mama Fields has a missing persons investigation box in her hands. Emily realizes that shit is happening, but Mama Fields tells her to go home now.

Wren and Eddie have a conversation at Radley. Eddie tells the nurse he’s running over to room 217 to give the patient in there a book. Apparently, that’s Spencer’s room because Wren intervenes and says Spencer needs her rest. He tells Eddie to give her the book tomorrow, but it’s Eddie’s day off. Wren decides that he’ll be the one to give the book to Spencer and they have a staredown over it. Wren asks if they’re having the same problem again.

Spencer is lurking around Radley. She finds the creepy children’s ward where Mona was hanging out earlier this season. As she walks further into the ward, she hears someone humming. It’s Ali. She’s sitting by a record player, looking through some old albums. Ali makes a comment about how Spencer never really knew Ali. They start slow dancing together to a song called “I’m Your Puppet” and it’s fucking weird. Spencer asks if Toby gave Ali the bloody lip, but Ali evades the question and implies that it was a girl who did it. Spencer asks Ali where the star is on Mona’s game board. Ali points her toward the room with all the cribs and dolls. She spots a rocking horse with a star on the side and takes off the horse’s head. Inside, she finds Mona’s nurse’s uniform and ID badge. She also finds a visitor’s badge for Cece Drake that was authorized by Wren. Just then, Wren appears and asks what Spencer is doing there. Spencer asks how many times Cece came to visit Mona. Apparently, Wren got in huge trouble for authorizing Cece’s visits and he doesn’t want to divulge a ton of information. He tells her that Cece said she thought she could help Mona recover from being terrorized by Ali. She wanted to be a role model for Mona. Apparently, Ali did something that got Cece kicked out of school. Spencer asks how Cece even knew about Mona. Wren tells her that the information came from Melissa.

Late that night, Mama Fields gets home from the police station and asks to talk to Emily alone. She tells Emily the park rangers found another body, but Emily cannot tell anyone what happened. Mama Fields takes Emily’s phone so she can’t tell the other girls. Mama Fields describes the body they found and says there was significant trauma done to it, so it will take a while to get an accurate identification. Emily looks like she might throw up.

In a somewhat detached storyline, Hanna is still conflicted over the fact that Uncle Daddy might be stealing from the church. She and Caleb go out to dinner with Uncle Daddy. While they’re there, he gets a call from Pastor Ted. Apparently, Pastor Ted just fires people over the phone. That’s cold. Anyway, Uncle Daddy sent the church bell away for repair, but the one that came back was worth about $8,000 less than the one that left Rosewood. At first, Caleb is outraged, but then Hanna tells him about the mysterious $5 bill she put into the church collection that later ended up in Uncle Daddy’s wallet. At this point, Uncle Daddy has seemingly fled town, but he ends up at the Marin household when he sees Caleb’s car there. There’s some yelling about Caleb’s childhood angst of growing up without a father and Uncle Daddy leaves.

Later, Hanna gets a text from A letting her know that A has the bell. Caleb sees the text over Hanna’s shoulder and looks enraged. Hanna immediately goes to talk to Aria about everything that happened. Emily shows up and tells the girls that the police found another body right where Spencer said it was. They also found her purse nearby.

While the girls freak out about the new body, we see Spencer in Radley. She pulls out her medication from the pillowcase. She also pulls out a black hoodie. She looks at it as we hear Mona’s voice talking to Spencer about second chances. Spencer’s holding two tickets to the puppet show where Aria found Malcolm. We hear Spencer tell Mona that she is in. Holy shit, y’all. Spencer joined the A Team.

For our closing vignette, we see a medical person pushing a new body into the morgue. We don’t see a face, but we do see Toby’s tattoo. Uh oh.

Next episode: The third season ends and we found out who is the elusive Red Coat.